Pt1420 Unit 3 Assignment

1) I have two apples, one banana, one cherry. Does it make sense to calculate the "average" of these things? Would you code that as a factor or a numeric value in R? I cannot think of any good reason to try and calculate an “average” of these fruits. It would be the equivalent of trying to find the average name of four people. I would definitely code these as a factor as they are names of things.
2) I have four quiz scores: 94, 93, 85, and 0. What is the mean (average) of my quiz scores? Would you code this as a factor or a numeric value in R? A mean (average) of a set of numbers is the total of those numbers divided by the number of numbers in the set.
94 + 93 + 85 + 0 = 272 : There are 4 scores : 272 / 4 = 68 (mean)
I would code the …show more content…
What is the mean (average) of my grades? Would you code that as a factor or a numeric value in R? If we were to apply the grades directly as they are given, they would be a factor. I would be inclined, based on the provided information, to leave them that way and code them as a factor. But as a factor, we cannot perform functions like finding the mean (average). In order to do that you would need to code them in some sort of numeric form. In order to code them as a numeric value we could not leave the grades in an A, B, C, D, F form and would need to give them some sort of numeric representation. As we were not provided with a set of rules to do this, I will have to make up some of my …show more content…
However, it might be just as reasonable to arbitrarily assign numeric values as: A = .9, B = .8, C = .7, D = .6, F = .5, which would result in the following: .9 + .9 + .8 + .5 = 3.1 : 4 values : 3.1 / 4 = 0.775 A 0.775, again, between a C and a B.
4) How would you explain the difference in mean values obtained in #2 and #3 above? The main difference between #2 and #3 is the information provided. In #2 you are provided very specific numerical values that is easily trackable based on what was originally presented. Likely, at first glance, we assume that the number presented in #2 is the percentage grade, but it actually says those numbers are scores. That could mean that the numbers presented could be the number of correct answers out of an unknown number of questions. For example, let us assume they are the number of correct answers out of 150 questions. This would change what traditionally accepted letter grades for those scores would be. This would result in changing the results from two A’s, a B and a F to two D’s and two F’s.
With #3, we need to have some sort of key in order to both apply functions, like finding the average, and to interpret the results. Assume that the only information that you received for either set of data was the result without knowing the

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